The Night Beat, From the Necropolis Enforcement Files (45 page)

He growled and it sent a different kind of shock up and down my spine. I’d never heard Ralph growl like this before. It wasn’t threatening -- it was sexy, deep-seated sexy, the kind of growl that made my butt start moving in that tail-wagging way.

I opened my mouth to try to say something, he grabbed me by my upper arms, pulled me to him, and kissed me, still growling. I tried to resist it, but in about two seconds I’d melted against him while his kiss and growl both got deeper. I managed to keep my cool, if by that I mean I didn’t rip his clothes off. I just pawed at him like I was trying to climb up his body. I was proud -- I kept both feet on the ground. Well, one foot, anyway.

The possibility of our consummating the relationship right here and now was increasing in likelihood when I heard someone give an exasperated sigh. “Mister Rogers, this is not the way the doctors want you resting.” I decided I really didn’t like this nurse. She’d sounded a lot nicer when she’d first found him in here.

Ralph ended our kiss slowly, giving me some time to sort of get myself under control. I only whined a little. “Coming.”

Well, not quite yet, but it’d been close. “When does Nurse Nancy come back on duty?” The base of my tail wanted a quick word, and that word was “mister”, as in, why had she called Ralph that this time, when she’d used his title before?

The nurse gave me a dirty look. “No idea. Why?” I examined her. No nametag. But she’d had on one before, I just hadn’t bothered to look at her name.

“I like her better than you.” I looked closely at her. Eyes were just a little wrong. Everything was just a tiny bit different from when she’d been in here only minutes before. “I like her a lot better than you, as a matter of fact.” I didn’t question the instinct that said to hit her, I just went with it.

My fist slammed into her face and she went flying. I switched to werewolf form as she hit the wall and also changed -- into a being with huge bat-wings.

I got my jaws on her throat while I heard Ralph shouting that we had a loose fallen angel. I hoped he was using an intercom of some kind and wasn’t going to get involved, because it didn’t take genius to guess she was here to kill him, not me.

Angels are hard to kill. Fallen ones are even harder. But she’d waited a little too long and I wasn’t in nearly the bad emotional or physical shape I’d been in hours, even minutes, before. I was still in a form of shock from everything that had happened, but I’d fought the Adversary one-on-one recently and one fallen angel chick wasn’t a real challenge after that.

Plus, I’d spent many an hour up at the University Library, going through every edition of “How to Dust Dangerous Minions” written by a variety of heroes over the ages. There were a lot of chapters on how to deal with fallen angels and they all agreed on one thing -- strip the wings from the body first, sever the head from the body second. Do it right and you wouldn’t need step three.

Did my flip around to the back while still keeping her neck in my jaws maneuver. Used my claws to rake at her wings. Ignored her clawing me back. We were in a hospital, after all. If I needed to get fixed up after this I wouldn’t have far to go.

I heard the sound of running feet and a variety of beings raced into the room. I was a little preoccupied, but I did spot Sexy Cindy and Freddy in the group. She had a spray can which she aimed and emptied right into the fallen angel’s face.

How Evil Fairy Repellent would be useful in this situation I had no idea, but it seemed to stun my opponent enough for me to get the upper claw. I wrenched my head and heard her neck snap. Good, but not good enough, and her wings were still attached, though much worse for wear.

“Vic, jump now!” Ralph shouted in a voice that didn’t really brook argument.

And I didn’t argue. I leaped off, up and over. I felt something swish by my tail as I flipped. I saw Merc swing an ax and cut off the fallen angel’s wings while L.K. did the same with her head. Apparently others had read up on fallen angel destruction. I got the distinct feeling these two were over bus driving as their main pursuit.

I didn’t stick the landing, but instead gracefully slammed right into Ralph. I was afraid I’d hurt him, but he didn’t seem too rocked by it. I switched back to human as he helped me up. “Nice one. Thanks for the save.” He kept his arms around me. I didn’t mention it. And my arms were around his waist purely in the interest of not falling over.

“I kind of owed you.” I didn’t know what else to say. There were a lot of other beings in the room and I wasn’t sure if that one kiss had been just to see what it was like before he trotted off into the sunset.

“Is that why you kissed me?” he asked softly. I wasn’t prepared to swear to anything, but he looked like he was trying to act casual and brave. But his eyes were sad and disappointed.

“Well,
you
kissed
me
.” Hey, it was true. “But that’s not why I kissed you back.”

He swallowed. “Why did you?”

I heard a dramatic sigh before I could answer. “Because she’s finally seen what you look like on two legs.” I looked over my shoulder to see Maurice saunter into the room. He shook his head. “I told you to go human a century ago, Ralphie. But did you listen?” He looked around. “What a mess. I hate to interrupt, but we do have a situation.”

“You’re not interrupting,” Ralph said, sounding very disappointed.

Maurice rolled his eyes. “She thinks you’re hot, stop acting hangdog.”

I looked back and forth between them. “I thought you two didn’t like each other.”

Ralph shrugged. “It was easier to deal with you that way.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Maurice sighed again. “Ralphie didn’t want you compromised, Vicster. However, not exactly being a wolf of the world, he somehow felt that you thinking we couldn’t stand each other was a good way to protect you.” He shook his head. “The things I’ve had to put up with over the decades. Specifically the whining. No being whines quite like a werewolf in love.”

“Are you Special Ops, too?” I was prepared for Maurice to say yes. Maybe the entire team was Special Ops. Maybe all of Necropolis Enforcement was there as an illusion for me, the clueless idiot.

Maurice snorted. “Hardly. I just found Ralphie a little…secretive and checked him out carefully, a long time ago.”

“He thought I was hiding that I was gay,” Ralph said flatly.

“He’s not,” Maurice reassured, though if the kiss had been any indicator, I didn’t need the confirmation. “However, what he
is
is Minion Target Number One. As I see you realized.”

“Why are they trying to kill Ralph now?”

This time everyone in the room gave me the “really?” look. “I don’t know,” Sexy Cindy said, sarcasm overly evident. “Maybe it’s because the dude’s finally gotten you to look at him as more than an annoyance?” I couldn’t argue. Ralph’s arms were still around me and I hadn’t exactly let go of him, either.

“Could we have maybe one minute alone?” Ralph asked. “Perhaps while everyone else cleans up the dead lesser minion?”

“Not lesser,” Merc said quietly. “I think we just offed Enepsigos.”

The room was quiet. She’d been very powerful, not up to the Three A’s level, but close. “Uh, yay team.”

“Thanks, Vic,” L.K. said with a morose chuckle. “You know what this means?”

“We’re really popular?”

“There’s a convergence point open,” Maurice said. “We’ll advise the Count while you two get your situation taken care of.” I opened my mouth but he put his hand up. “It wasn’t a guess. I’m here because there’s a convergence point open. Three guesses which one and the first two don’t count. Beings are advised. Trust me when I say you two getting your one minute of requested alone time is probably a good use of time and leave it at that.” He spun on his heel and flounced out.

The others followed him, taking the dead body and severed wings and head with them.

Ralph sighed. “Back in action.”

“Not you. You need to rest and get well.”

He stroked my hair and the side of my face. “I am well. And I’m also not letting you face all of this without me.”

I thought about all the grandstanding he’d done with me over the years. Not grandstanding, though, not really. He’d spent all this time trying to protect me, because it was his job and because he’d fallen in love with that job.

“I know this is hard for you,” Ralph said softly, still stroking my hair. “And with what just happened with Wagner,” he snarled the name, “I’m sure you’re confused and not really ready for a relationship with anyone, let alone me.” He closed his eyes. “I just want to know if, after this is over, you think you might still be open to a date, or even going steady.”

“You heard me?”

He opened his eyes. “Yeah. I heard you talking -- to someone else and to me. I couldn’t answer, even though I wanted to. So I had to struggle to get to you. According to the doctors, if I hadn’t woken up when I did I’d have dusted.” Ralph gave me a half-smile. “You know what they say about hearing the voice of someone you --” He stopped talking and smiling and looked down. “Well, you know.” He let go of me and headed for the door.

“You really are a dork, you know.”

Ralph’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I know.”

“I mean, you have the girl all ready to burst into tears and tell you how sorry she is that she was an unobservant idiot and how much she wants you to hold her and do that growl thing again, let alone that kiss thing again. And instead of taking advantage of the moment, you decide to trot off. Did you date at
all
before I met you?”

He spun around. “Not really, no.”

“It shows.” He stood there, looking very unsure and also, I was happy to realize, really cute. Like a big puppy who wasn’t sure if he was going to get swatted or loved on. Clearly, I was going to have to help. “Ralph, this is the part where you kiss me again.”

He brightened up. “Really?”

I couldn’t help it -- I laughed. “Come closer and find out.”

Chapter 63

Our incredibly hot make-out session was interrupted by Sexy Cindy. “Maurice says to stop slobbering on each other because we need you two, now. Exact quote, by the way. If it were me, I’d let you two go at it.”

Ralph and I separated. “Fine, fine. But Ralph has to stay here.”

She shook her head. “Nope. Maurice got him cleared. The doctors want him under observation, so he has to stay in a full team, no solo work. Otherwise, good to go.”

“Our kind heals fast,” Ralph reminded me.

“True. I just don’t want you to get hurt again.” My voice was back to almost-whining.

Ralph hugged me tightly. “We’ll be fine. A pack together can never be defeated.”

I didn’t make any sarcastic comment and I wondered at myself. His outlook, while still a little militant, made sense now. And I felt safer next to him.

Normally I’d have been in a funk over what had happened with Jack and hesitant about getting involved with Ralph for a variety of justifiable reasons. But I’d made the fastest mating switch of my entire existence, thanks to Jack actually being evil incarnate, and I still wasn’t having any problems with it. And if it would make the horrific ick factor about having been intimate with what was at least a part of my biological father fade away sooner as opposed to later, so much the better.

“You got a big pack, if they don’t all have to have four legs,” Sexy Cindy said. She gave me a wry grin. “Told you he was gonna be worth it.”

“You did. Good insight. Who’s with us besides you?”

“Freddy, Merc, L.K., pretty much everyone else from earlier.” She gave me a long look, then stuck her head out the door. “Boys!” Freddy, Merc and L.K. arrived. “You three take Ralph back to Maurice. We girls’ll be along as soon as we clean up a little.”

No one argued. Either Sexy Cindy was really gaining some on-the-job authority, or I looked like hell.

The males trooped out. “Okay, how bad do I look?”

Sexy Cindy shook her head. “You look okay. I mean, brush your hair and straighten your clothes, but otherwise, you’re fine. You and Ralph seem all loved up. You sure you’re okay?”